The work on the book progressed rather slowly. Often Adam had to refer
to Robin when his memory was at fault. At first she had gone away, to
leave him alone with his work, but as he referred to her more
frequently, she sat with him, sewing while he wrote, a frame of
morning-glories back of her, or reading with the keen enjoyment of one
who renews a pleasure long foregone. When he seemed to be going on
smoothly, she sometimes stole away and gave herself up to long hours
with her violin.
One afternoon she tapped on his casement. His work was lagging, and he
rose gladly and went out with her. They walked up the path and through
the gateway to their boulder, and sat down.
"Talk to me," said Adam.
She shook her head. "About what, most worshipful seigneur? For I am
but a worm of the dust before thee, and all my tales are of the homely
tasks of baking and brewing. Naught is there worthy to be set down in
thy book." Then, with a sudden change of manner, "Oh, Adam, there are
eighteen new chickens to-day! The Plymouth Rock hen stole a nest, and
they came off this morning. And there is some news too. The flax is in
bloom. It is so pretty."
"When do you expect to weave your first linen?" asked Adam.
"Oh, I don't know, but it is good to know there will be some to weave.
Do you remember Andersen's story of the flax? I was thinking of it
this morning as I pulled out some weeds, and how when it was pulled up
and cut and hackled, it said: 'One cannot always have good times. One
must make one's experience, and so one comes to know something;' and
when it is woven and cut up and made into garments, it still says, 'If
I have suffered something, I have been made into something. I am
happiest of all. That is a real blessing. Now I shall be of some use
in the world, and that is right, that is a true pleasure.'"
"If one only knew he was to be of some use," Adam said wearily; "if we
could see the justification of our suffering."
"Then we should be as gods," answered Robin. "I like the song of the
flax, 'content, content;' and when the linen is worn out, it is again
tortured and beaten until it becomes paper whereon an eternal word is
written. I used to wonder why Andersen was given to children; not that
I wouldn't have them read him, but he is one of the profound thinkers
of the world. No one had Andersen clubs, or professed to find deep and
wonderful esoteric truths in his stories, but they are there. Do you
remember my girls' club down on--I don't think there were any streets,
but the inhabitants called the place 'Kerry Patch'?"
"Why, no," said Adam, "I didn't know you had one; why didn't you tell
me?"
"That was ever so long ago, ages and ages,--when you came to see--"
She paused a little, and then spoke the personal pronoun that tells
the whole story, for a woman can say "him" in such a way as to betray
unspeakable heights of adoration or abysses of loathing. She went on
slowly. "You were not one of my friends then; how could you be, if
there existed anything in common between you two? That sounds
dreadful, but you know all about it so well that subterfuges are
useless."
"To tell the truth, I never cared anything about him at all," Adam
answered quickly. "Like a good many others, I was enthusiastic over
your voice. He asked me to the house to hear you sing, and I went, and
was glad of the chance. And you have never sung for me once this
year."
"You never asked me," she answered. "'A dumb priest loses his
benefice.' But I was speaking of my club. We studied Andersen all
winter, and got enough more out of him than a lot of us who pored over
Ibsen, guided by a literary expert. Andersen has a more beautiful, a
more inspiring philosophy. Every nation has its story of Psyche, the
lost soul of things, but none is more beautiful than the tale of Gerda
and Kay. There were children in that club who were cruel, horribly
cruel, and one day when we gave an entertainment for them, one of the
older girls recited the story of 'The Daisy and the Lark.' They cried
as I had cried over it years before."
"I remember," he said. "It broke my heart when I was a little shaver.
I couldn't give so sad a story as that to a child."
"Oh, yes, you could," she said, "if the child needed it. The world was
cruel, cruel, Adam; I used to wonder sometimes why God did not blot it
all out, as He has blotted it out now. Once in another club, a big,
swell affair, there was a Humane Society programme. One woman, in a
Persian lamb jacket, spoke on the evils of the overcheck; you know how
they get that wool? And women nodded the aigrettes in their bonnets,
torn from the old birds while the little ones starved to death, to
show their approval, and patted their hands gloved in the skins of
kids, sewed in cloth soon after their birth so they couldn't grow a
fleece, and tortured all their short lives, and went home to eat
pâté-de-foie gras, and broil live lobsters, thanking God they were not
as the rest of men, if only they let out their check-reins a hole or
so. It was horrible,--the cruelties men practised to gratify appetite,
and that women were guilty of for vanity. I suppose I am a monomaniac
on the subject, but we never seemed far removed from barbarians, when
we went clothed in the skins of wild animals, and decorated with their
heads and tails and feathers, like so many Sioux chiefs. The varnish
of civilization isn't dry on us yet. Why, if a ship should come here
now, do you know what they would do first, unless they happened to be
East Indians? They would say they wanted some fresh meat, and offer to
buy Lily; she is the fattest of the cows. If we wouldn't sell her,
they would probably take her anyway."
"Kill Lily," cried Adam, angrily. "They'd have me to kill first;
nothing on this place is going to be slaughtered while I can protect
it." He went on more slowly, a little ashamed of his heat, "I feel a
sense of kinship with all these creatures that would make it
impossible to kill them. It's like the woman whose Newfoundland died,
and a friend asked if she was going to have him stuffed. 'Stuffed!'
she said; 'I'd as soon think of stuffing my husband!'"
Robin laughed, and leaning over tweaked Lassie's ear. "If we are to be
stuffed, we prefer to have it an ante-mortem performance, don't we,
little dog?"
The sun dropped behind the tall peaks, but its dying light still
covered sea and shore. They rose as if for the benediction, and looked
out at the waters before them. Then they looked at each other and grew
white to the lips, and Robin knelt down and flinging her arms around
Lassie sobbed and laughed. Adam never took his eyes from the coming
ship.